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and 1980s. This came from dissatisfaction with psychometric approaches and their
failure to account for cultural infl uences on risk perception: '. . . psychometricians
[have] isolated the cultural factors and treated them as another variable in an
experimentally derived technical framework . . . [rather than] explore the cultural
underpinnings of risk perception' (Plough and Krimsky, 1987, p. 8). Crucially,
Douglas (1986) argued that the psychometric approach simply studied
what
people
perceive as risky rather than
why
they hold such views, and emphasised that risks
are actually built on a network of social and institutional relations defi ning accept-
able behaviour. Risk perceptions were argued to vary systematically according
to four cultural 'biases': individualist, fatalist, hierarchist, and egalitarian. Each of
these was seen as defending a particular way of life and a corresponding set of
institutional arrangements (Pidgeon and Beattie, 1997). However, Cultural Theory
omits the ambiguity of interpretation that is central to the social construction of
risk. It also ignores the possibility that an individual could have more than one
cultural bias in any given context (Horlick-Jones, 1998). Several other risk frame-
works have emerged since the 1980s. One such framework was the Social Amplifi -
cation of Risk Framework (SARF) attributed to Kasperson et al. (1988). SARF was
based on communications theory, in which the media was seen as an important
source of risk information, along with the symbols and imagery with which events
and hazards were portrayed to the public (Petts et al., 2001).
In human geography, technical, economic, and psychological approaches to
studying risk have increasingly given way to cultural and sociological approaches
(Adams, 1995; Lash et al., 1996). These approaches have been infl uenced heavily
by Ulrich Beck's claim that we now live in a 'risk society' (Beck, 1992; 1995). This
has a number of implications. First, contemporary risks, such as avian fl u, geneti-
cally modifi ed (GM) crops, and climate change are larger, more complex, and more
uncertain than those experienced in the past. Second, scientifi c knowledge is 'both
the medium through which risks are defi ned and the source of their solution'
(p. 155). According to Beck, science is the primary
cause
of many environmental
problems, such that 'science becomes more and more necessary, but at the same
time less and less suffi cient for the socially binding defi nition of truth' (p. 156).
Finally, it becomes increasingly diffi cult to identify and solve problems: 'The bound-
aries of the problem are diffuse, so it can hardly be separated from other problems
[. . .] Confl icting values and facts are interwoven, and many actors become involved
in the policy process' (Hisschemoller and Hoppe, 1996, p. 43).
Of course, Beck's ideas have been criticised. Goldblatt (1996) considers Beck's
writings to be '. . . not so much rigorous analytical accounts of modernity as surveys
of the institutional bases of the fears and paradoxes of modern societies - societies
that no longer correspond to the classical sociological descriptions or possess cul-
tural resources that allow them to live comfortably with the world' (p. 154). In this
way, Beck's theory can be seen as narrowly focused on the hazards generated by
industrial society. A key example cited is the risk of environmental disaster caused
by nuclear reactor accidents like Chernobyl.
Alongside the psychological and social aspects of uncertainty and risk, the focus
of research will have an important infl uence on uncertainty and risk. 'Situational
factors' include the defi nition of a problem, its complexity, scale, spatial and tem-
poral variability, and transparency to investigation (Brown, 2004). Traditionally,
these factors are treated as methodological issues, controlled by computing power,
model resolution, fi eld methodology, or sample size, rather than inherent properties
